Category: Economics

We’ll start with the ugly. Yes, Trump has a big mouth and has said a lot of mean things about a lot of people. He was also caught in a private conversation saying very inappropriate things about his “way” with women. Right on cue, the Clinton machine trots out a bevy of accusers who come out of the woodwork three weeks before the election. Are the accusations true or not? Who knows and really who cares? Compared to all of the actual crimes and lies of the Clintons, the words of Trump and the allegations against him are child’s play.

Now the bad. A few of his proposed policies are bad. He clearly does not understand economics and his proposed protectionist policies (with threats of tariffs) will be about as effective as Herbert Hoover’s were just prior to the depression. He clearly has few principled positions. He does not really understand the Constitution and that its purpose is to limit and restrain government. He has said a lot of just plain dumb and contradictory things about a lot of policy issues. My hope here is that he will surround himself with the right economic and national security advisers and from all appearances he is doing that.

Now the good. The first thing to understand is that Trump does not need this. He had a great life, great business, great family, and could have easily spent his sunset years flying around on his jet with Melania and golfing at his luxury resorts. I do believe that, like many millions of other Americans, he is truly concerned about the direction of this country and what it means for our future and that’s why he threw his hat in the ring. That alone is reason enough to vote for him over a woman who desperately needs this — Mrs. Clinton has been scheming to gain this as a pinnacle of power her entire adult life.

Trump has also been the only Republican in recent memory to fight. Romney, McCain and all the rest of the milquetoasts rolled over while the Democrats engaged in the most loathsome smear campaigns with their partners in the media. To his credit, Trump has also pushed back on hard on political correctness and challenged the entire establishment.

Most importantly, despite all of the noise and the pathetic depths this election has sunk to, there are serious differences in policy. Let’s put the character issues aside for a moment and think about the long-term consequences of policies that will actually matter.

Here are some of the most important things that are being buried under all the piles of B. S.:

The Economy. Trump wants to cut the corporate income tax from 35 percent to 15 percent (on average) across all businesses. This is great news. It will boost jobs, promote economic growth, and give corporations a powerful incentive to stay in the U.S. or repatriate. He has also promised to roll back some of the 24,000+ regulations Obama has saddled us with. Hillary, on the other hand, makes vague promises from her Marxist playbook, such as “equal pay,” “fairness,” “minimum wage,” and “make the rich pay their fair share.” She never shows how these policies actually produce more jobs or more economic growth. That’s because they don’t. All she will do is accelerate the downward pull and pressure group warfare of the welfare state.

The Supreme Court. The next appointments will change the Supreme court for forty years. If Hillary wins, both the first and second amendments will be in jeopardy — these are most important amendments of a free country. Clinton has shown she is an enemy of free expression and has said many times she wants to overturn the “Citizens United” decision, which simply upholds the right to free speech in matters of politics. Trump has named possible appointees who will uphold the U.S. Constitution. In the second debate, Clinton listed several race, gender, and age related social goals for her new Court. She did not mention the Constitution because she couldn’t care less about the Constitution. Trump may not either, but at least there are many on his side that do.

Foreign Policy. Trump has not been very clear as to his foreign policy; however, he does state his approach would be “America first.” Historically, and this goes back to the group that was skeptical of our entry into World War II, “America First” has meant that America’s love for its ideals of freedom, individual rights, and the democratic process, does not mean that we have to spread them all over the world using the military. My sense is that Trump would only focus on actual threats and eradicate them forcefully. He has hinted at an approach that would seek cooperation with friendly and not-so-friendly allies like Russia. Hillary has said she would oppose Russian power in Syria in order to support “democratic forces” fighting the regime. Other than that, it is pretty clear she will continue Obama’s policies of appeasement, and she can barely utter the words “radical Islamic terrorism.” Her record as Secretary of State was disastrous and much of the world is on fire because of it. By any objective measure, the Obama-Clinton foreign policy of the past eight years has been an epic failure.

Healthcare. Trump wants to repeal Obamacare, encourage competition among health insurance companies, and create health care savings plans and tax exemptions for medical expenses. In other words, he would be moving toward free markets and the private sector, which is the right direction. Hillary wants to try to duct tape Obamacare (which is already in a death spiral as we speak), but everyone knows that her real dream is “single payer,” which is a complete government run, Soviet-style healthcare system. Do you really want the government “running” the healthcare industry?

Energy and the Environment. Trump understands we are becoming energy independent thanks to technology such as fracking and natural gas storage. Because of these advances, we have now become the #1 energy producer in the world for the first time in decades. This means we can potentially be free of dependence on oil from the Middle East. Trump questions the man-made global warming dogma, and says there is no evidence it presents a long-term threat. The global warming hypothesis is full of holes and it certainly should not justify the elimination of our robust fossil fuel economy, dramatically higher energy prices, and making us dependent on the Middle East. Hillary, on the other hand, laughably believes “global warming and climate change” are the single greatest crisis facing America. Mrs. Clinton (or is it Mrs. Quixote) wants to dismantle America’s fossil fuel energy infrastructure and, as we learned in some recent Wikileaks emails, “dreams” of a hemisphere comprised of windmills, solar panels and “open borders.” That is sheer madness because those “clean energy” solutions have never turned a profit, and have proven to be utterly incapable of powering an advanced industrial civilization. She has been openly hostile to coal producers and workers. And an “open borders” policy in an age of terror would pose a grave threat to America.

National and Domestic Security. Trump has stated he will work to restore law and order. He has promised to rebuild the military. He has been on the right side in the war on our cops, a war which has been exacerbated by the false narratives spun by the likes of President Obama and the rest of the left. There is a reason why the most honorable men in the country support Trump over Clinton. Mrs. Clinton has rushed to judgment before the facts are in regarding cases such as the shooting in Tulsa, OK, has perpetrated the myth of institutional racism among law enforcement, and has even gone so far as to claim that all Americans are racist in the second debate (which she called “implicit bias”). Mrs. Clinton will do virtually nothing about illegal immigration and has incredibly promised to increase the Syrian refugee influx into our country by 550%, while admitting that there is really no way to vet them. In doing so, it appears she would like us to suffer the same fate as Europe, which is in crisis due to a deadly combination of migrants, terrorism, and crippling debt.

Illegal Immigration. There are now around 12 million illegal aliens in the United States. By definition, they came here by violating our law. Since they are illegal, they cannot legally work within the system, cannot pay taxes, cannot pay social security, etc. However, they do enjoy many benefits supported by taxpayers at tremendous cost (and risk). Consider what John Quincy Adams said about immigration and think about it within the context of today’s welfare state:

“But there is one principle which pervades all the institutions of this country, and which must always operate as an obstacle to the granting of favors to new comers.This is a land, not of privileges, but of equal rights. Privileges are granted by European sovereigns to particular classes of individuals, for purposes of general policy; but the general impression here is that privileges granted to one denomination of people, can very seldom be discriminated from erosions of the rights of others.”

Trump says that in a country founded on equal application of the law, the current situation is simply not fair. He says those who are illegal need to go through the process (which we have) to become legal. He also says that new illegals, which are pouring into the country at unprecedented rates (many of whom are criminals and some of whom are potential terrorists), must be stopped. Oh, and he wants to build a wall in case you haven’t heard. Hillary says expecting people to obey our immigration laws is is racism, bigotry, cruelness, and just plain “deplorable.” Her solution to illegal immigrants is to simply wave her wand and declare them legal. Won’t that provide an incentive for millions more to come in the same way? How is that possibly fair to those who are waiting in line to come in legally?

Education. Trump wants to make education a state and local matter. Altough the Federal government should not be involved to begin with, at least he wants to direct funds from the federal government toward “schools of choice,” charter schools, and other alternatives to the failing public education monopoly. Clinton, because she’s beholden to the NEA and the unions, wants to permit no competition within the public education system. She’ll just keep throwing more and more money at the failing model. That’s the Democrats’ way and the NEA loves it.

These are pretty stark policy differences. These are the policies that will effect our lives, our security, our prosperity and our country. And considering the importance of the Supreme Court, these are the policies that will set the direction of the country for decades and effect the lives of our children and grandchildren.

The sordid private lives and sex lives of the candidates don’t matter one iota in comparison with the huge issues above. This is why I believe Trump is clearly deserving of our votes.

There are a couple of ways to look at it in context. The first is this: voting for Trump is like playing Russian Roulette — we don’t really know what we’re getting and it could end in disaster. But voting for Hillary is like playing Russian Roulette with a gun that’s fully loaded.

Another way to look at it is this: yes, Trump is a train wreck as a politician; however, I do think he will act as a giant monkey wrench in the evil establishment machine and slow down our descent into socialist oblivion combined with a rising jihad. He will at least buy us some time while we try to get better candidates for high office. Obama’s core policies of socialism for Americans and appeasement for our enemies have made us far less prosperous and less safe. They have made us far, far weaker and set us on a disastrous course. Trump will at least attempt to reverse that, whereas Hillary will double down on it.

A President Trump will also drive the entire elite establishment crazy and all of the hypocritical and holier-than-thou leftists will be clutching their pearls and rushing to their safe spaces (where they will write checks to left wing agitators to cause trouble). He might be worth your vote for that alone, but really, consider the ramifications of the policies above closely before you step into the ballot box.

That’s really what this crazy game of politics is all about in the end.

So this is probably the ugliest and most depressing election in the history of this country given the amount of mudslinging on both sides.

However, I would suggest that it’s also critically important to understand that it is the first election in our history in which the mainstream media has become an active proponent of one of the candidates to an extreme degree. The negative coverage of Trump by ALL of the mainstream media is unprecedented. In fact, a recent report showed that 96% of those in the media who donated money gave it to the Democrats. In addition, the negative of coverage of Trump vs. Clinton is something on the order of 20 to 1. This is true no matter where you go in the mainstream media, whether it’s ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, The New York times and all print media, or even online sites like Yahoo News.

As a result, the American people are not getting the full story — unless they are proactive about educating themselves. The mainstream media is working overtime to destroy Trump and prop up Hillary by focusing almost exclusively on “Trump bashing” over issues that are of no importance in terms of policies that will actually affect us and the future of this country. Yes, he brings much of it on himself but the bias is relentless and pervasive across all of the mainstream media.

I have observed the Clintons for 25 years, and in my opinion, Trump is a choir boy compared to the both of them. Hillary Clinton is a woman who stayed married to a man that she very likely knew raped Juanita Broadrick, and assaulted many others. She kept up a marriage of convenience to that despicable human being even after his escapades with an intern inside the sacred walls of the oval office and his subsequent impeachment for lying about it. Instead of leaving him like any self-respecting woman would have done, she defended him and engaged in vicious character assassination against his victims. Why? Because she wanted to ride his coattails to the presidency someday. She sold her soul for power.

And, even worse, she acted as an attorney to get a rapist of a twelve year old girl, whom she knew was guilty, off the charge of first degree rape and then bragged about how clever she was to get him such a light sentence. Listen to the whole tape linked to above and then tell me she cares one iota about women and children. This poor girl had been raped into a five day coma by two men at once and was never able to have children as a result, yet Hillary got the perpetrator off and then laughed about it afterwards.

Hillary Clinton and her husband are corrupt, power-lusting sociopaths with no conscience. She has even taken millions of dollars in “pay to play” money for the Clinton Foundation from countries that treat women worse than dogs and throw homosexuals off buildings, yet she poses as a defender of women and gays while feigning “outrage” over Trump’s mere words about his lustful thoughts, spoken in private, when he was in showbiz, not politics.

Then we have the incident in Benghazi, Libya, when Mrs. Clinton was Secretary of State. First, she exhibited dereliction of duty in not providing the necessary security to Ambassador Stevens, despite over 600 requests for more security. This gross negligence and callous disregard for her own embassy appointees resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith during the initial assault. Then, during the 13-hour raid, she and Obama left all of the incredibly heroic Americans who defended the compound twisting in the wind with no help or support until it was too late and they finally suffered a mortar attack that killed Ty Woods and Glen Doherty.

Then, knowing full well it had been a coordinated terrorist attack (two in fact, at separate compounds), she lied to the American people, claiming it was a “spontaneous demonstration,” triggered by a silly Youtube video. Even worse, she then incredibly proceeded to tell the same lie directly to the faces of the parents of the men who were killed. And for the coup de grace, when she appeared before Congress to discuss the matter, she famously shrieked, “what difference does it make,” while callously referring to “four dead Americans.”

She will do or say anything to get elected. When caught on video at a fundraiser, she showed the real Hillary when she arrogantly demonized half of Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables,” saying they are “irredeemable,” and then went on to tick off all of the silly leftist insults she could think of. Watch the video again and note the incredible arrogance of her delivery and her disgusting smirking after she delivers the lines.

Hillary Clinton is a disgrace, a liar, a fraud, and a power-at-all-costs leftist who will destroy this country. Yes, Trump is egotistical, he’s vulgar, he can be grossly immature, and he has a big mouth, but at least he wears all of his demons on his sleeve. What you see is what you get and his flaws are pretty consistent with normal human nature. Whereas with Hillary you are getting someone who has spent a lifetime as a cold, calculating liar obsessed with power. She will say one thing to your face and then think nothing of knifing you in the back. Just read all of the Wikileaks documents if you doubt that. She exhibited gross incompetence as Secretary of State, has achieved nothing of productive value in her life, made her money through bribery and corruption via the Clinton Foundation, and recklessly put our national security at risk by using a private email server because she thinks she is above the law — yet she feels a neurotic entitlement to rule. And rule she will, like a scorned Maleficent.

But even putting character aside, there are so many far more substantive issues that make Trump the clear choice in this election. In simplest terms, his proposed economic and national security policies are far superior and those are what will effect us and our children the most. He will also push back at the political correctness (i. e., “liberal fascism) that has been strangling this country.

If anyone still thinks that Hillary is the better choice, PLEASE read the article I’ve linked to below from Frontpage Magazine in its entirety. This is one of the best summaries of the many reasons this woman should never become President. It makes a very comprehensive and substantive case without resorting to the Clinton’s main tactic, which has always been “the politics of personal destruction.”

The Clinton RecordA devastating expose of the most unfit and undeserving individual ever to seek the American presidency

I truly cannot believe that any American who has educated themselves about this despicable woman would ever contemplate voting for her. From the above article…

“Never in American history has anyone as unfit and undeserving as Hillary Clinton run for U.S. President. While she stands on the threshold of being elected to the White House, she quite literally belongs in a prison cell. This article lays out the case against her, chapter and verse.”

Back in 2008, in a fruitless attempt to dissuade as many people as possible from voting for Barack Obama, I laid out 7 major reasons why his presidency would be a disaster. In looking back, I must say that I was very prescient. However, I take no solace in that. These predictions were quite easy, given the principles the man espoused and the people he learned from and admired such as Saul Alinsky and Jeremiah Wright. Still, it may be instructive to take a look at my predictions and see how they played out for our country. Yes, your vote does matter.

Reason #1: He will take more of our money, and further destroy our economy, by drastically increasing taxes and regulations.

Check. Obama has drastically increased taxes across the board as you can see here. Many of the taxes are on businesses and the healthcare industry, but keep in mind those are indirect taxes on all of us, because those costs are always passed on to the consumer. If you work, there is a much bigger tax bite under Obama than previously. A huge portion of Obama’s billions in tax increases have been on the middle class. Despite his campaign pledges to the contrary, he has heavily increased taxes on the middle class, raised the capital gains tax, increased the death tax, removed various retirement account deductions, and even decimated 529 College Savings plans by taxing them so heavily.

“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.” [Video]

Did you really believe him?

As far as regulations, it has been central planning on steroids…

Did you know that under Obama, there have been 20,642 new regulations added? What is a “regulation?” The best way to think of it is as an unconstitutional law — in other words, the government interfering where it shouldn’t. All of this regulation has been a huge drain on our economy by burdening businesses and crushing their ability to innovate, grow, and reinvest in their companies and workers.

More than $22 billion per year in new regulatory costs were imposed on Americans last year, pushing the total burden for the Obama years to exceed $100 billion annually. As the Heritage Foundation put it, “That’s a dollar for every star in the galaxy, or one for every second in 32 years.”

A discussion of the regulations themselves is obviously beyond the scope of this article, but if you are interested, the Heritage Foundation put out a comprehensive report you can read called “Red Tape Rising.”

Last but not least, let us not forget his crowning achievement. Mr. Obama has amazingly managed to spend more money than all of the other Presidents combined! That means from George Washington, up to and including George W. Bush. When he got into office, the national debt was at $10.6 trillion, it now sits at $20 trillion! That means the debt will have very nearly doubled during his eight years in office, and there is much more debt ahead with the abandonment of “sequestration” spending caps enacted in 2011.

This is a “debt bomb” planted for future generations to have to deal with and we should all be ashamed of ourselves for allowing it to happen.

Reason #2: He will ruin the quality and increase the cost of health care by socializing medicine.

Check. But “if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. ”

Nothing will be more indicative of Obama’s economic legacy than the so-called Affordable Care Act, a socialist monstrosity shoved down our throats by corrupt machinations in Congress, while it was opposed by the majority of the American people.

In attempting to sell this albatross to the American people, Obama claimed it would save money and require no real changes to your current medical situation. Again, the results of getting the government even more heavily involved in 1/6 of our economy had predictable results. Mr. Obama promised Obamacare would provide “more choice, more competition, lower costs.” Instead, Americans have less choice, less competition and higher costs.

First, the costs of healthcare for everyone have gone up, not down. In fact, a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office says that healthcare costs for the average family will balloon over 60% over the next ten years. The report states that private health insurance premiums will increase by about 5 percent annually — a rate that outpaces the gross domestic product by 2 percentage points. By 2025, employment-based coverage (health-care insurance an employer offers) will cost 60 percent more than it does today. For an average family, that means an increase of $24,500 per year! For those with an individual plan, that’s still a $10,000 per year increase. For this current year, it’s already an average $4,500 increase per taxpayer.

But it gets worse, because you have to remember that all of these increases in cost due to government meddling also come with another cost — TAXES.

The CBO also reports that Obamacare will cost taxpayers $1.34 trillion over the next decade, an increase of $136 billion from the CBO’s predictions in 2015. In 2016 alone, Obamacare will cost taxpayers a total of $110 billion. So not only are you suffering huge cost increases with a lower quality of care, you also get stuck with a trillion dollar tax bill over the next ten years.

Somebody must be profiting from this though right? What about those evil insurance companies, they must be the ones sticking it to us? Actually, they are also getting crushed by this. As this Washington Post article explains…

UnitedHealth Group announced that, after estimated losses of more than $1 billion for 2015 and 2016 under Obamacare, the company was pulling out of most of its ill-fated exchanges. In fact, commercial insurers across the country are hemorrhaging money on Obamacare at alarming rates. Health Care Service Corp. (which owns Blue Cross and Blue Shield affiliates in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas) has lost “well north of $2 billion” in its first two years — twice as much as UnitedHealth. Highmark, the nation’s fourth-largest Blue Cross plan, lost nearly $600 million in 2015. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina has projected it will lose more than $400 million in the first two years, and the company has said it may leave the exchanges entirely next year.

As far as those on the Obamacare plans, rates are climbing drastically and the deductibles are so high they have become almost useless. In addition, 8.1 million Americans have been hit with $1.7 Billion in Obamacare penalties, according to Investor’s Business Daily.

So who is the winner in this? Nobody. Unless you want to count corrupt and foolish politicians like Mr. Obama who are able to pull the wool over the eyes of so many people with “feel-good” policies like this that are a disaster in practice. But it’s not his problem now, he’ll be out of office in a few months and will be laughing all the way to the 19th hole, while the rest of us suffer from this monstrosity for decades.

Reason #3: He will weaken the military and leave our children less safe by retreating in the war vs. radical Islam and generally trying to appease our enemies.

Check. Except I never imagined he could be in office for 8 years without uttering the words “radical Islam.”

Not only has weakened our national security by engaging in what Charles Krauthammer rightly calls “serial appeasement,” of our enemies, he has completely retreated in the ideological war against radical Islam by being an apologist for Islam at every turn and failing to even name the enemy.

It was easy to tell that he would do very little to pursue anything like a victory over our enemies, but who could have predicted he would precipitously pull all of our troops out of Iraq and create a vacuum to be filled by the likes of Isis (who he naively called the “JV” team of jihadis)?

Who could have predicted that he would cut a deal with Iran that would give them the financial shot-in-the-arm they needed to ramp up their nuclear ambitions — and then send them over $1 billion in a “cash for a hostages” deal?

And who could have known we would have so many terrorist attacks on our own soil, primarily because of the loose immigration policies and the incompetence of an FBI that has been hamstrung by Obama’s Justice Department. For example, in the recent bombings in NY, the perpetrators own father had turned him in to the FBI two years ago!

While the Middle East is on fire and the jihadi threat looms larger than ever… with daily attacks against civilian targets all over the world… what has our Commander-In-Chief been doing to strengthen and inspire our military?

Nothing. Actually, he’s cutting our troop levels. They are expected to fall to 450,000 this year, down from 570,000 in 2010. With the Jihad growing exponentially, plus a hostile North Korea and aggressive Russia, this is hardly the time to be cutting troops. While the threats continue to mount, Obama continues to reduce the capability (not to mention morale) of our military. According to The Washington Times:

The U.S. military is shedding so many troops and weapons it is only “marginally able” to defend the nation and falls short of the Obama administration’s national security strategy, according to a new report by The Heritage Foundation on Tuesday.

Again, given his anti-American view of America and our place in the world this was entirely predictable…. yet is very dangerous for Americans.

Reason #4: He will increase the cost of energy – and limit our choices – by strangling production and increasing regulations.

Check. There’s no better example of this than the Obama Administration’s war on the coal industry via the EPA. According to a recently released report by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), more than 80 percent of the nearly 18 gigawatts of electric generating capacity retired in 2015 was conventional steam coal. This represents 4.6 percent of the nation’s coal capacity at the start of 2015. Regulations such as the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards are costing the coal industry tens of billions of dollars per year. From 2008 to 2012 the coal industry lost more than 50,000 jobs.

The problem is not just for those in the coal industry. Reducing capacity drives up prices for all the rest of us. Although Mr. Obama and his cohorts on the left are under the delusion that subsidized energy from solar and wind will take the place of fossil fuels the facts say otherwise. Despite $150 billion in subsidies, the amount of “clean” energy has only increased from 2% to 4%.

In addition, we have the absurd regulations to reduce carbon dioxide in an attempt to combat the delusional theory of “manmade global warming.” Energy Ventures Analysis (EVA) just released its analysis of the EPA’s “Clean Power Plan” (CPP), which mandates a 32 percent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 from 2005 levels. While the EPA claims these regulations will be virtually cost free, this study finds:

Consumers will pay an additional $214 billion by 2030;

45 states will see double digit increases in wholesale electricity costs; and

16 states will see a 25 percent or higher increase in wholesale electricity costs.

The bottom line: as with everything the government meddles with, you will pay more for energy and be left holding the bag.

Reason #5: Cocky Ignorance and laughable hubris.

Here I was talking about all of the over-the-top and egomaniacal statements candidate Obama made, such as this whopper:

Generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment…. when we provided healthcare for the sick, jobs for the jobless… when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal….”

Translation: all of the bad things are rising and the good things are falling. The “Obama Moment,” set us into a downward spiral it may be impossible to climb out of.

Reason #6: A liberal supermajority in Congress.

Here is one that I got wrong but it didn’t really matter. There was no liberal supermajority in Congress, but the Republicans have been so pathetic there might as well have been. Despite that fact that the Republicans control more seats in Congress than any time since the 1920’s they have been completely feckless when it comes to opposing Obama’s policies.

I don’t have space here to get into everything they caved on, but here’s a 2015 article by Senator Ted Cruz, titled “The Republicans In Congress Are Surrendering To Obama,” that sums it all up very nicely.

First, shortly after taking the reins of power in the Senate, the GOP-led Congress fully funded President Obama’s illegal and unconstitutional amnesty.

Then, the GOP-led Congress institutionalized and expanded Obamacare policies by permanently surrendering on the so-called “doc fix.” To accomplish this feat GOP leadership broke with the long-established bipartisan practice of paying for the doc fix and added half a trillion dollars to our nation’s debt over two decades.

Next, Senate GOP leadership facilitated the approval of Obama’s disastrous Iranian nuclear deal. They did so via a convoluted, backwards disapproval process that was designed to fail, and then did nothing to prevent the deal’s implementation or stop more than $100 billion from going to Iran and its terror proxies.

Here I was concerned about reinstatment of things such as the Orwellian “Fairness Doctrine,” which fortunately has not happened. However, free speech is dramatically on the decline due in large part to the tenor set by the Obama administration. It is common now for anyone who doesn’t observe the politically correct party lines of the left to be shouted down on campus, or even have their events shut down due to bomb threats and death threats as has been recently happening to Breitbart Editor Milo Yiannopoluis.

Despite Obama’s recent lip service to free speech when he speaks on college campuses, his actions over the past eight years show a hostility to free speech. In a good article at Reason Magazine covering this, Anthony Fisher writes:

Following the January 2015 massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, President Obama defended the “universal belief in the freedom of expression,” adding, “The fact that this was an attack on journalists, an attack on our free press, also underscores that these terrorists fear freedom of speech and freedom of the press.”

Needless to say, this hostility the left has for freedom of speech has been on full display this election season, with Donald Trump’s supporters being continually harrassed, assaulted and beaten after his rallies, or even for simply wearing one of Trump’s “Make American Great Again” hats, as was caught in this video. Isn’t it interesting that the Wikileaks dumps just revealed that these agitators at Trump rallies were bought and paid for by the DNC?

In Conclusion

Yes, given the basic philosophy and ideas of this President, the above developments were very predictable. As bad as the above is, there were several other development that were not as easily predicted but equally disastrous. For example, although it was predicted by some, I never would have thought the racial divisions would have become as bad as they are now… and who could have conceived of the extent of the left’s war against the police with the rise of Black Lives Matter? All of that has been made far worse by the tone and rhetoric of Mr. Obama, who has done nothing to attempt to stop all of this nonsense which is based on the false premise of systemic racism in the police force nationwide.

It’s true that some are not feeling the brunt of all of the economic destruction. If you are a rich Hollywood actor, or a pampered professional athlete, higher taxes and regulations and a stagnant economy have no serious effect on your life. If you have a lot of money in the stock market, it’s true that you have benefited by the fed keeping interest rates close to zero — but all that’s doing is creating a bubble and kicking the can down the road. If you are a government employee and on the receiving end of the gravy train, maybe you think this is all swell. But I believe a majority of Americans are waking up to the fact that all of these policies are making their lives more difficult and making their children less safe, while creating very ominous debts and threats for them in the future. The middle class is getting crushed under this as they always do under big big government socialist policies.

It is clearly beyond time to reverse course, which means we cannot double down on this mistake by electing Hillary Clinton. Stay tuned because that will be the subject of my next article….